Oh, the Twitter Woes

Image credit: http://www.anettfrozen.com

J: Twitter is kind of driving me bonkers

M: Twitter always drives me bonkers

J:  my irritation is with authors who schedule twitter posts and then spam the hell out of people all day long with nothing but advertisements for themselves

or maybe even for others

but have zero engagement

M: some people only use it for that – promotion and marketing.

J:  and the >.< isn’t so much about scheduling posts

that’s all well and good

I use it for marketing, too

the >.< is when I open my twitter and the first 20 tweets are from the same author about various things

four times a day? fabulous!

every second? I hate you.

M: I don’t even know how to schedule tweets

J: you do use the auto post buttons from blogs

the “tweet this” feature

I actually pay attention to those

and find new books through yours

M: Oh, yeah, I do that for things I think are interesting to share or to help other people spread the word

J:  I think you’re doing it right

not only are you not posting 1,000,000 times per day about yourself

you’re using twitter to spread the word about others

M: I’m all about that

I know I “should” use it more, but I don’t enjoy it

I tried to get into it, I really did. You’re so active and in a good way on facebook, twitter

but I just can’t

J:  I do miss silly tweeting with you sometimes, but you’re not filling my timeline with auto-tweets, so we’re cool

M: what’s the point of auto tweets? Just to sell stuff?

J:  yes

M: I mean, isn’t the point of twitter to be interactive?

J:  yes

now you get me

M: well, that’s why I don’t use it so much. I don’t feel interactive enough. I like sharing cool things, or things that interest me

that might interest others

J:  but that is interactive, see? the sharing information

that’s what it’s about

YOU’RE DOING IT RIGHT!

M: but here’s my thing – I hate things only being about numbers, and that’s what twitter has kind of turned into. How many followers, who unfollowed. It’s too much like cliques in high school or something sometimes

J: It doesn’t have to be that way

M: Here’s the other thing – I can’t read all the tweets. So what’s the point of having followers or being followed if no one reads them?

this is what baffles me about Twitter

I have blah-de-blah number of followers. Great.

but what good is it if no one reads my tweets?

J:  I do try to track certain people who interact with me, but I also find it rewarding to scroll through the last hour or so of my full list of follows just to see things I might have otherwise missed

but this is where I get my >.<

M: can you really read tweets of the multiple thousands of people you follow?

J:  I DO actually pay attention to all that I follow

not all the time, which is why social media experts suggest tweeting at least four times per day

to reach the optimal number of people

M: that’s the finding a balance thing, isn’t it?

what twitter and other social media were maybe originally intended for and what they’ve ended up being

I don’t like the hypocritical “I hate twitter, but I’ll use it to sell my stuff”

to me that just seems wrong

it should be about interacting with people, but it seems to be all about gaining numbers and not really caring about people behind those numbers

J:  we both use Twitter for the same reasons, which are to engage and inform. I’m more comfy sharing personal stuff than you are, but it doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong. Most of my personal stuff is just making fun of Liam

and I’m cool with people tweeting about their lives, too

that’s interesting

well, those who tweet everything they do are also on my list

please don’t tell me you’re folding laundry on twitter

unless it’s part of a conversation, which is a whole other story

M:   if you’re just telling people you’re folding laundry, that’s not interacting

connecting, catching up, I can totally see that

but otherwise… I don’t know

J: but I do know a lot of my followers would be interested in some of the stuff I do. probably not all of them

I mean, if you tweeted pics of your dogs, I’d look at them

because it’s you

and your dogs

M: it does go back to your original point – oversharing whether it’s personal or professional

there’s an author in my list of people I follow that is auto tweeting the exact same thing from over a year ago

the exact same marketing/promotion message for the book

o.O

that’s not only annoying, it’s lazy

J:  there!

that’s exactly what I’m talking about

M: i don’t get it. as a reader, writer, or sometimes twitter user

J:  and chances are that’s the only damn thing she/he posts

that’s where I was going with it

M: and that goes back to my question: how does that help anyone if no one actually reads it?

J:  it doesn’t

it does nothing but annoy me

so this chat is my PSA to anyone who does that

STOP

the ones in your timeline really are probably pre-scheduled

which means that author opened twitter, scheduled tweets, and then never opened twitter again

so what they’re really doing is alienating potential readers

M: well, I’m not a big Twitter user, but that’s just my weirdness, so I’m not the best judge

J:  just for that, we should tweet-read another book together

M: it’d have to be a really spectacular book to get me on Twitter. Let me go find one.

brb